Thursday, February 17, 2011

I was so excited when we moved into our new house because it has, not one but two pantries. I had recently seen some blogs where others had done some amazing pantry makeovers so, of course, my mind was envisioning what mine would look like.

Well a few weeks after we moved in, here's what my 2 pantries looked like. This is the smaller of the 2. It's right in the kitchen so it makes sense to use it for food storage. Niiiiiice! See the box on the floor of the pantry? That's where all my spices and stuff were being kept. Nothing like having to dig through a box when you need some garlic powder!

And here's the larger pantry that I thought would be a good place to store small appliances, paper products, extra stuff. Not exactly how I envisioned it. Pretty sure the dangling cords are a safety hazard!

So after several hours of work, here's the reorganized pantries.

You're probably thinking, how much did you spend on containers?! Well I already had most of the plastic ones. And since I knew I wanted to organize the pantry, I'd been keeping my eyes out for some cheap ones. The glass containers w/the silver lids came from Dollar General. I found a set of 3 plastic containers at Wally World for $3.50 per set. The silver tins and glass jars on the door came from Goodwill. The tins had Christmas pictures on them so I just painted over them with some chalk paint. I already had the brown basket. I made the labels for the plastic containers on the computer and just taped them on. I'll probably have to use a stepstool to get anything off the top shelf, so I figured I'd just go ahead and stack the containers on top of each other. We did buy the door shelf at Home Depot & Steven hung it up for me.

Here's the other pantry:This is pretty much how I envisioned this pantry. Steven & I have gotten in the habit of drinking instant coffee,(don't judge) so that's why the coffee pot is in there. Last summer we hosted a fish fry & Steven bought an abundance of peanut oil. Maybe by 2020, I'll have used it all up! Any suggestions on how/where to store the oversized grilling utensils would really be appreciated! Right now, they're hanging out on the second shelf. The tub holds napkins, plastic silverware, styrofoam cups, etc. I may end up moving my flour & sugar containers to this pantry, we'll see.

So there's my pantry, all clean and reorganized. Oh yeah, one more thing I had to add to my pantry:

because one little boy, who shall remain nameless, loves to get in there and help himself to a snack!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Tonight, we decided to drive to Steven's Mom & Dad's to have dinner with them. At some point during dinner, Steven's mom started talking about her grandmother. Her name was Annabelle Hawkins Adams. It's a little strange that she married an Adams and then years later, her granddaughter (Steven's mom) married an Adams too. But back to the point. Steven's mom was sharing that her Grandmother lived with her family and that her Grandmother shared a room with her & her sister. Steven's mom said, "I can still hear her voice. Every night as she was going to sleep, she would quote bible verses until she drifted off to sleep."What a precious memory.What a precious legacy.This is part of the reason I'm participating in SSMT. I want my children to see me working to memorize scripture, not just for the sake of rote memorization but so that it will become part of who I am.And who knows, maybe someday my grown granddaughter will be sharing precious memories about me with her daughter in law.I also wanted to share this story, so that someday my kids will have this memory about their great-great-grandmother.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Well, we got moved in and we've been settling into our new home. We already love it. Most of the boxes have been emptied, and it's really starting to feel like home.Even though we're renting, the owners have given us permission to do any painting/changing to the house. So I took it as long as I could before something had to be done about the dining room and kitchen.Here's the dining room before:"Hello, this is 1992 and I want my wallpaper back." Just in case you didn't get the full effect of the zigzags.And here is the after:

I took this picture at night and the lighting makes it look more gold than it really is. It really does match the valance that is hung up in the window. Here's a pic with all the furniture in the room. We're not using it as a dining room but more like an office. Excuse Steven's desk, he's been so busy, he hasn't had a chance to get it all put away. Unfortunately, we can't do anything about the green carpet. Again, bad lighting, it really bugs me that it looks so gold.

Here's a pic of the kitchen before:Yes, you are looking at it correctly. The border ran around the base board and the wallpaper is on top of the chair rail. It bugged me, so I took down the border and painted the area below the chair rail. I left the wallpaper above because if you saw how much there was, you would completely agree! Here's the after:So that's all the DIY for now. My next project is to get our TWO pantries organized!Love y'all dearly!!!

About Me

I am a child of God, a wife and a mother. My husband is a pastor and we have 4 beautiful children. We are a blended family and our life is anything but normal but God is constantly reminding me that He has plans for our future and that no matter what we go through, He is our hope!